Message from Michael -- October 5, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        October 5, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

      LEAD STORY

      THE FREEMIUM DEBATE CONTINUES

      DIRT IS GOOD

      CHRONOSYNCLASTIC INFUNDIBULUM

      FACTOID OF THE WEEK

      COCKTAIL CHATTER  -- RICH AND RETIRED

 

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      LEAD STORY:  That’s not much of a headline, but it seems appropriate in this instance, because I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why the fact that Internet advertising has overtaken TV advertising in the UK wasn’t the lead story for all the media newsletters I get.  As reported by The Guardian newspaper, the UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on the Internet than on TV.  Actually Denmark was the first country where Internet advertising spending overtook Television advertising spending, but Denmark doesn’t quite make it as a ‘major economy.’  The article cited a report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse Coopers that showed in the first half of this year, Internet advertising accounted for 23.5% (or $1.75 Billion Pounds) of all advertising money spent in the UK compared to 21.9% (or $1.6 Billion Pounds) spent on Television in the first half of this year.  The UK equivalent of the TVB (Television Bureau of Advertising) is called Thinkbox (isn’t that a cool name?).  Officials there make the point that the IAB report lumps everything into Internet advertising including email, classified ads, display ads and search marketing.

      THE FREEMIUM DEBATE CONTINUES:  And if you continue with the idea that what happens in the UK could be a harbinger of things to come in the USA, a Harris Interactive poll in the UK found that just five percent of the Britons surveyed would pay for news online.  Half (53%) said they would pay for online news if it was bundled with a free or discounted print edition while three-quarters (72%) said the most they would pay is “less than 10 British pounds.”  Also from the British side of the pond, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told a group of British broadcasting executives that publishers of general news will have a hard time charging for their online content because there is so much free content available and “the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity.”  As reported by Reuters, Schmidt did say that niche content providers, such as business publications, might succeed.  Schmidt’s statement came in response to an announcement by News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch that he could start charging for online content as early as next year.

      DIRT IS GOOD:  So proclaims an ad for laundry detergent which reportedly convinced officials in Singapore to ‘increase recess time at its academics-heavy, stress-inducing schools.’  The Unilever product which is sold as Omo in Asia and Skip in France did this by emphasizing the theme that every child has a right to play and explore.  The Wharton School of Business called it a “customer-engaging social message” that combined Old Media and New Media.  The school’s recently launched project looking into the Future of Advertising says the winning marketing plan is more likely to be a hybrid model that builds on each media format’s strengths.  For example, not only is dirt good, the project says television is good.  A look at TV advertising’s ‘efficacy’ found that there was no erosion of TV’s impact in recent years, despite DVR’s and ad-skipping. Part of the secret to success is running a “two-way dialog with consumers.”  But to find out the rest of the secrets, the school’s Center for Advanced Studies in Management plans a years-long study, including The Fast.Forward project with Google to expand the discussion to a wider audience.

      CHRONOSYNCLASTIC INFUNDIBULUM:  Somewhere out there is a Message reader who probably actually knows what this is.  Not me.  It comes from Kurt Vonnegut’s Sci-Fi novel, The Sirens of Titan and refers to places “where all the different kinds of truths fit together (and) ways to be right coexist.”  At this point, you are all saying, what the heck does this have to do with media?  It is part of the description that the Time magazine editors use for one of their top 50 Websites of 2009 – Get High Now.  No, the website has nothing to do with the illegal high too many of you are familiar with.  It is a high from ‘mind expansion’ illusions or hallucinations shown on the science site and is indicative of the kind of wondrous weirdness that the Internet is capable of.  In keeping with that science fiction theme, the editors also name Wolfram/Alpha as one of the top 50 websites, arguing that the unusual (and challenging) search engine site may actually fulfill the science fiction writers prophesy that at some point the Internet may gain a consciousness of its own (sort of like the computer HAL.)  Most of the websites on the list are much more mundane, with a full complement of the usual suspects – Hulu, YouTube, Google, Flickr, Delicious, and Twitter. Skip them.  Visit the off-beat websites to see what’s going on.  Sites like Know Your Meme which attempts to explain what is funny on the Web, such as Geddan which is the Japanese version of “Get Down” and is a video dance created by inserting a video game cartridge only part way into the holder.  Or Etsy which the editors describe as “the long-haired Birkenstocked love child of Amazon and eBay.”  And, instead of visiting those sites for bargains, go to Shop Goodwill which really does have some bargains.  Instead of Flickr, go to Photosynth which allows you to mash up a 3D version of multiple pictures.  Instead of Craigslist go to CraigLook, which provides a better GUI interface based on the original site.  Instead of Time magazine’s website, go to Issuu which has an enormously diverse set of individual and corporate magazines.  Looking for an alternative to the rants and raves of the blogosphere, go to Fora TV which features well known and insightful authors and speakers, or Academic Earth which leads the “edupunk” movement to move academia into the ‘real world.’

If you don’t have the time or energy (as if I do), two sites made the Time list of top 50 websites and the magazine’s list of top 25 blog sites:  Boing Boing and Metafilter which provide an eclectic look at what’s going on in the “Hal-sian” world of the Internet.  If you do have the time or energy, here are the links:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1918031,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1879276,00.html

      FACTOID OF THE WEEK:  Traffic on 3G Networks will increase 20 times over in just the next five years, according to a forecast by wireless experts Unwired Insight.  Based on the graph provided by the company, the average traffic per 3G network is about 100 Megabits a month now, but that by 2014 it will top 2,000 Megabits a month.  And, considering this is coming from people with a vested interest in wireless, the report offers the unusually candid assessment that some networks won’t be able to cope with the growth.

      COCKTAIL CHATTER: It’s not likely to break your heart to learn this, but it took a ‘mere’ $930 Million to make it to the Forbes List of the 400 Richest Americans this year.  Last year you had to have $1.3 Billion to make the list.   The list has the usual suspects – Bill Gates at the top, followed by Warren Buffett and Oracle’s Lawrence Ellison.  But it’s the other factoids associated with the list that are most interesting.  Such as the fact that three quarters (314) of those on the list lost money this year compared to a quarter (126) last year.  Buffett lost a whopping $10 Billion, dropping his fortune to $40 Billion.  There was a slight increase in the number of people who made their own wealth (276 compared to 270 the year before) as opposed to being born into wealth.  Despite the presence of 25 year old Mark Zuckerberg as the youngest Billionaire on the list, the average age is 65.8.  Maybe because Zuckerberg is offset by the oldest Billionaire, 95 year old television mogul John Kluge.  And just because it’s hard not to do a message without mentioning social media any more, websiteUberCEO.com reports that only two of the top 100 CEO’s have Twitter accounts and only 13 have LinkedIn accounts.  And not one has a blog.  One of those with a Twitter account – Warren Buffett whom UberCEO reports has 7,441 followers but doesn’t follow anyone.

On the flip side of this economic coin, the Pew Research Center reports that only about half (51%) of all retirees say they retired because they wanted to.  A third (32%) retired because of health or other reasons while one in ten (9%) say their employer forced them to retire.  Despite that, more than half (57%) found retirement ‘very satisfying’ while a quarter (23%) found it ‘fairly satisfying.’  And as you would expect, the voluntary retirees were twice as likely as the reluctant retirees to find life in the slow lane ‘very satisfying’ (75% vs. 37%).
 

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